This is a rush transcript and may contain minor errors and/or discrepancies from the audio. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

Dr. Dobson: Well, hello everyone. I'm Dr. James Dobson and I have some good news to share. One of Family Talk's most loyal friends is aware that this ministry has struggled financially this year. This generous donor has made a $200,000 matching grant to help carry us into the summer. This means that any gift, and I do mean a gift of any size that we receive between now and May 31st, up to the grant amount of $200,000, will be doubled. If you're able to make a contribution of any amount toward this matching grant, it will help keep us on target to continue the development of the James Dobson Family Institute.

You know, I've been fighting for the family for more than 40 years now and I'm not about to stop. You can make your donation securely online at drjamesdobson.org or if you prefer you can pledge your support by calling us at 877-732-6825. That number again is 877-732-6825. Thank you for your prayers and support of this ministry. God's blessings to you all.

Roger Marsh: Hello everyone. I'm Roger Marsh, and you are listening to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. On today's program you're going to hear the conclusion of a conversation Dr. Dobson had with a panel of experts on Men's Ministries. They'll be discussing why husbands and fathers are not as involved in the local church as they once were. Now this panel included Reverend H.B. London, pastor at Friendship Church in Sun City Palm Desert, California, Chris Van Brocklin, the director of No Regrets Men's Ministries and founder of Men With A Purpose, Vince D'Acchioli, founder and president of On Target Ministries, and Patrick Morley, president of the National Coalition of Men's Ministries, also the founder and chairman and CEO of Man in the Mirror Incorporated.

Now these influential leaders will discuss the ways churches can reach out and include men in ministry and offer encouragement to guys who think it's too late to be or have a spiritual mentor. Let's pick up with Dr. Dobson's question on the definition of biblical manliness, and we'll hear Patrick Morley's answer to that question right now on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.

Patrick Morley: A man from a biblical perspective, first and foremost he is a disciple of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He has decided to make the Bible his first rule for all matters of both faith and life. He's hard after the fruit of the Holy Spirit, but I do think that the idea that ... The great need we have is for a discipleship reformation. I've told you this before, Dr. Dobson. Is there any way to ever get the world right without getting the church right? Well, probably not. Well, can you get the church right without getting the family right? No. If you're still tracking, can you get the family right without getting marriages right? No. Can you get marriages right without getting men right? No. Finally, can you get men right unless you help them become disciples of our Lord and Savior Jesus?

Really, you get men right, you get marriages right. You get marriages right, you get the family right. You get the family right, you get the church right. You get the church right, you get the world right, or at least as right as you're ever going to get a fallen world. This has been tried before 2,000 years ago, for God so loved the world that he sent Jesus who gathered around him some men. He built into their lives. He said, "Now look, I'm going to have to leave, but I'd like you to take these principles and share them with your friends."

Here we sit here today because Jesus had the strategy of helping make disciples of men.

Dr. Dobson: It started with 12 men, or 11.

Patrick Morley: You started this ministry as a men's ministry.

Dr. Dobson: I really did.

Patrick Morley: You did.

Dr. Dobson: People have forgotten that, but it's true.

Patrick Morley: Tell the people the story. It's an unbelievable story.

Dr. Dobson: Well, it goes all the way back to 1976. I was getting hundreds if not thousands of speaking requests. I was running all over the country. I was praying. I was on the way to Children's Hospital that day in a little Volkswagen. I was saying, "Lord, you know it doesn't really make any sense for me to figure out what I want to say to all these people that are coming to hear me. Why should I depend on my shortsighted view? Why don't you tell me what you want me to say?" I was just praying along that line. I said, "Just give me your message with regard to the family and the gospel of Jesus Christ." As clearly as the Lord is ever going to speak to me, not in audible words, but he said to me, "If this country is going to make it and if the family is going to survive, it will be because husbands and fathers begin to accept their responsibilities for leadership, and especially spiritual leadership in their own families."

I know that women are extremely important to the family. No one can take anything away from the women, but they tend to be more motivated for the family. If you get the husband involved, you get the whole family. H, you already said that. If you lose the father and the husband, you lose a certain percentage of the kids as well. In fact, I have the stats here. Listen to this. For every ten men in the average church, nine will have kids who leave the church, five have a major problem with pornography, four will get divorced, affecting one-million children each year, only one will have a biblical worldview, and all ten will struggle to balance work and family.

Patrick Morley: I'll tell you how it works out in real life. We have a young woman who came to work at our ministry, 24 years of age. She got out of college and wanted to go to work at a men's ministry as a receptionist. One day I walked through there. I said, "You got a college degree. What are you doing here?" She said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, you know, why aren't you out pursuing some big career?" She said, "Well, when I was nine years old my mother and father separated. Then I saw my dad a few times after that. Then when I was 13 they got divorced and I've never seen him again. I want to give my life to helping other men not be like my dad."

Happy ending to the story, we were actually able to locate her father up in the North East and get them reconnected and they're starting to rebuild a relationship.

Dr. Dobson: You know, one of the great blessings in my life is I had a father who was a masculine role model for me. He hunted, he fished, he made things, he had a certain dignity to him as a man and I wanted to identify with him. I wanted to be like him. I've said many times that it was out hunting with him in the woods that something in our relationship changed. He was different with me out there than he was anywhere else. He was building into me. He made me want to be like him. He made me want his values for my values and his God for my God. It came out of having what some of you guys didn't have. Vince, you didn't have it. Pat, you didn't have it. Did you have it, Chris?

Chris: Actually, I had a dad who was great. He was there. He was a World War II Veteran. One of the things I would say about him is he had a difficulty just connecting with me emotionally, and that's not unusual. A certain amount of that has been passed onto me and I have trouble emotionally connecting with my own son.

Dr. Dobson: Isn't that interesting how few has it?

Chris: There is a skip on the hard drive in my own experience now. I think that's true for many.

H.B. London: Jim, you know we've talked about my dad, your uncle and my dad who was this great pastor who could preach about as well as anybody I've ever heard and what most people think. Wherever I go today people talk about him, but he never could identify with me. He could never tell me that he loved me. You know, when I think about the church and the masculinity of the church, you go back to Joshua 24. It's that one simple phrase where Joshua said, "As for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord." There was a determination and there was conviction that whatever came, whatever took, whatever the peer pressure was, we were going to serve the Lord. Whatever that meant, we were going to pay that price. I think that's where the body of Christ must come to with men who make that decision more than money, more than wealth, more than jobs, more than prestige, more than popularity, as for me and my house we're going to serve the Lord.

Dr. Dobson: There are two groups that I want to address right now, and I would like you all to help me do it. The first group is made up of a very large number of women who are sitting here saying, "My husband needs to make that commitment. I am so frustrated with his inability to give himself totally to the cause of Christ." The second group, smaller in number, represent the men who are out there. Some of them are truck drivers, some of them are physicians, some of them are attorneys, some of them are school teachers, some of them have any number of positions but they're listening, and I want to say to you guys if you lose it at this point, you lose everything. I don't care what you accomplish in life, you lose it at this point and it's gone. If you lose your kids, if they don't know Christ and they don't know you do, and they are not around, you're not around enough for them to identify with you, you're a failure. You're a failure, but we're not here to beat you over the head. It's not too late.

Vince D'Acchioli: Let's start a revolution.

Dr. Dobson: Let's do it. Why don't you lead it?

Vince D'Acchioli: Honestly, there is a revolution underway. Women, if you're out there listening, men, there is a revolution underway. There are men all over the United States who are becoming passionate about having a relationship with Jesus Christ. Now, you can go out to our website ncmm, that stands for National Coalition of Men's Ministries, ncmm.org, that's www.ncmm.org.

Dr. Dobson: That was a commercial.

Vince D'Acchioli: It's a portal to all of the men's ministries in the United States. There are like 80 organizations and you can find information that you need. All the ministries working with men. We want to help you. If you will go out there and just ... You can find, like we have one portal is home and family. Another is Christian walk, just anything you want, counseling, temptations, addictions is another portal. Get out there. Take a look.

Dr. Dobson: Let's get your other commercial out of the way. You got another one coming.

Vince D'Acchioli: No, it's not a commercial. I want to talk to the ladies.

Dr. Dobson: Oh, okay.

Vince D'Acchioli: I don't get a chance to talk to the ladies very much and I'd like to talk to the ladies. I had a very, very ugly background. My wife Cindy, who is a wonderful lady, spent years and years praying for me that I would become eventually the spiritual head of my home. She came to know Jesus long before me. She for years didn't know what to do. Even our closest Christian friends would tell Cindy, "Cindy, you might as well give up." They said, "We could see the ayatollah Khomeini coming to Jesus, but not that guy." I mean they gave me no hope.

I want to suggest this. It wasn't until Cindy discovered that she could not change a hair on my head. There's a principle, a spiritual principle, perhaps one of the most profound ones we find in God's word, and it's the principle of letting go. To the ladies that are listening, you need to ... The worst thing that Cindy did for a time was to try to encourage me, manipulate sometimes is the word that I would use, to get me to do things that I just did not want to do. It wasn't until she said, "Lord", in a prayerful posture before God, "Lord, I cannot change a hair on this man's head. I want to give him to you", and she actually gave me to the Lord and began to pray for me. I don't know how that works, but I'll tell you what ...

Dr. Dobson: I really agree with you, Vince. There's no doubt about the fact that there's something about nagging a man that turns him off big time. On the other hand, where you got children involved, you can't sit around and wait for him to catch fire.

Vince D'Acchioli: That's right.

Dr. Dobson: My grandmother, godly little woman, weighed 95 pounds. My grandfather was 6'5" and he would have none of it. He saw hypocrisy in the church and he didn't want anything to do with it. He said, "You go. You take our six kids. It's all right. You do what you need to do, but just keep me out of it." She just quietly started praying and fasting for him. She didn't nag him as far as I know. She just prayed for him. She prayed, she fasted weekends for him. She was out there praying for him. 40 years she prayed for him. You know this H, 40 years she prayed for him and it came down to the end of his life and he did not know Christ. He had a stroke and his life just really unraveled. Never been sick a day in his life. His daughter was in his room fixing the medications and taking care of his bed. She looked at him. He was crying. Nobody had ever seen him cry. She said, "Daddy, what's wrong?" He said, "Honey, go get your mother."

She ran downstairs to get my grandmother. She came up and knelt beside him. She said, "what's wrong? Tell me." He said, "I'm not afraid to die. I know I'm going to die. I'm not afraid to die, but it is so dark. Will you pray for me?" She had been waiting 40 years for that man to ask her to pray for him. She said, "Will I pray?" She got on her knees and he went sweeping into the kingdom. Two weeks later he died with a testimony on his lips. Sometimes it takes that.

Vince D'Acchioli: Yes.

Dr. Dobson: You just ...

Patrick Morley: Dr. Dobson, there's a man right now listening to this broadcast and he's saying, "You know, I need that in my life, this resonates with me." If you're out there, it's really quite simple. All you have to do is acknowledge that you're a sinner who needs a savior.

Dr. Dobson: That's it, yeah.

Patrick Morley: Just invite Jesus to come into your heart and life and to change you from the inside out. Then get yourself connected to a church where they're preaching out of God's word.

Dr. Dobson: Pat, do you have to go do a lot of good things before Christ will save you?

Patrick Morley: You got to read a lot of books, you know.

Chris: Bringing Up Boys.

Dr. Dobson: I'm baiting you, and I know what I want you to say.

Patrick Morley: The interesting thing is that, sir if you're listening, you don't have to do anything to improve your record to be acceptable to Jesus. In fact, there's nothing you can do. The Bible says he wants you just like you are, but he wants you as one who acknowledges that he needs a savior. Just right now, wherever you are, just pray.

Dr. Dobson: Repent of your sins and turn to live for him.

Patrick Morley: If you're driving, don't shut your eyes.

Chris: May I say that, don't get the feeling ... There are pastors out there also listening and probably at this point it feels like there's no hope. There's tremendous hope. There's tremendous hope for the church. There are tremendous hopes for those people who are leading in the church. I have a passion for men. I get phone calls just on a regular basis, all of us do, and it is a pastor or a leader saying, "Just exactly what can we do to reach our men?" That's where we have really put a lot of our emphasis into. In fact, the National Coalition of Men's Ministry has a book called Effective Men's Ministry.

Dr. Dobson: I'm holding it in my hand. There's a foreword by you, Patrick. It is edited by Phil Downer. This is a compilation of little essays and suggestions and ideas for pastors and for those that would like to start a men's ministry.

Patrick Morley: That's right. It starts with the basic foundation. It expresses some of the things that people have learned in the field. A lot of the people who were involved in the National Coalition of Men's Ministry have been involved in this for years and years. They're just sharing some of the things that they've learned along the way. There's also a training that is available also through the National Coalition of Men's Ministries. In fact, I spend a good deal of my time out just simply doing the training in the local church helping churches to discover some of the best ways to develop an effective disciple making ministry to men.

Dr. Dobson: That's how these programs came to be, that compilation of leaders. They were all directors of men's ministries, those 80 ministries. Each one had a passion for the same thing. It was really inspiring, all working on the same issue together, which doesn't often happen within Christian ministry.

Chris: Dr. Dobson, two very quick things. They're related. For the ladies that are listening, and there's another thing you can do. That is that you can encourage your church to have an effective ministry to men. Maybe talk to your pastor. Talk to some of the leaders there and talk about how important it is to get men going. The National Coalition of Men's Ministries, our annual conference is a place where pastors and leaders can come together. There are relevant workshops that deal with all different aspects of ministry to men put on, by the way, by some of the best ministry leaders in our nation today. It is a place where pastors and leaders can come together and every resource you can imagine dealing with effective ministry to men is in one place at one time. It's a very, very special gathering.

Patrick Morley: ... It's not supposed to be. The event is supposed to create some momentum, but then you have to capture it and sustain them. Sustainability is the problem in every business and every ministry.

Dr. Dobson: How do you disciple men, Pat?

Patrick Morley: Well, what is a disciple, and then how do you make one? A disciple is a man who gets called to walk with Jesus, equipped to live like Jesus, and then sent to work for Jesus. He's called, equipped and sent. He's a learner. The church, through preaching, through teaching, like in Sunday Schools, through Bible studies, by teaching men spiritual disciplines like having a daily devotion, informal discussions like the ones H.B. is talking about that he has with his men, you know some of the most valuable lessons I've learned have really been over lunch with a guy he didn't even know he's touching. Seminars, retreats, men's activities, leadership trainings. These are the means by which we make disciples.

Pastors often think that they have to come up with something new. No. We just have to take what we're already doing and contextualize it for men so that it makes sense.

Vince D'Acchioli: Jim, you know, thank you, Pat because you're right. Man, you're singing my song. You know as a pastor to pastor, and I see so many pastors who struggle in their church, I know the answer to a lot of those questions. That is if the men could get involved and become the leaders and become the spiritual giants that their families want them to be and that God expects them to be. Pat, you were talking about it doesn't have to be a big thing. I just in my hand I'm holding here, I'm thinking about what I wrote this in the book the Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper a long time ago for the Promise Keeper's book. What I try to do, three simple things.

Number one, I try to establish the level of a man's spiritual background. I just try to talk to him about where they were from and what they were like as a kid. The second thing, establish a common ground for shared interests. So many men never get a chance to talk about themselves. I just want to hear their story. The third thing was to establish the groundwork for ongoing relationships. If you don't have ongoing relationships, then it becomes a promise keeper's event. Ongoing relationships takes promise keepers to the level that it was intended.

Chris: There's nothing wrong with the event, per se. It's just catalytic ...

Dr. Dobson: No, no. Promise Keepers has done a great work. I want to make sure that we don't discourage it.

Chris: The tendency is to think that the event accomplishes it.

Patrick Morley: PK is part of NCMM, so we're grateful to PK.

Vince D'Acchioli: Men must realize that there's gonna to be somebody at the other end of the phone when they need them.

Patrick Morley: It's discipleship taking place in the local church. In fact, that's the vision of NCMM, it's a disciple making ministry to men in every church. We believe that this, and we thank you so much for giving us this national forum today, to raise ... We want to raise a national dialogue about the importance of allocating more intellectual and financial resources to helping our men. We thank you for that.

Dr. Dobson: This is an important one. This is high on my list of priorities. It's been an honor to have you all here. I have the feeling that there are three or four more commercials we could get done.

Patrick Morley: I've got one.

Dr. Dobson: You're just getting one by giving the title of your book. Let me give the title of this book again: Effective Men's Ministry, the Indispensable Toolkit for your Church.

Roger Marsh: We pray that you have enjoyed this informative broadcast over the past couple of days here on Family Talk. Be sure to go to our broadcast page at drjamesdobson.org to learn more about the many resources that these men offer and the ministries they lead. Again, go to drjamesdobson.org and then hit the broadcast tab.

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Finally, would you consider giving a financial gift to support the ministry of Family Talk? Every dollar you donate from now until the end of May will be doubled thanks to a generous matching grant. Hurry over to drjamesdobson.org and learn how you can give a gift securely online. You can also call for that information at 877-732-6825. That's 877-732-6825. Thanks so much for your generosity in supporting our ministry, and thanks for listening to today's program. Make sure to join us again tomorrow to hear an exclusive conversation that Family Talk's cohost Dr. Tim Clinton had with Zach Ertz, tight end for the Superbowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles. That's coming up next time on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.

Roger Marsh: For Family Talk, here's Dr. James Dobson.

Dr. Dobson: When's the last time you heard someone referred to as a good family man? This term used to be a badge of honor, yet today it's almost seen as an old fashioned idea. You know, when I think of a good family man I envision a father who holds to four basic and traditional roles of fatherhood. First, he is a family provider. He's the one who sees that the physical and financial needs of the family are met. Second, he's the leader of the clan, the person who lovingly guides the family and sets down clear limits of authority for the children, leading with love, firmness and consistency. Third, he serves as a protector, shielding the family from dangerous and harmful influences. Fourth, he provides spiritual direction, seeing that the family's moral values and religious beliefs are taught to the children and held sacred within the family unit.

I'm well aware of how old fashioned and outdated these views may seem to many, but if you take an honest look I think you'll see the timeless wisdom in these values. Security for a child is rooted in them. In spite of what some may have tried to tell us in the past, the father is usually the one who is best wired to handle those tasks.

You can call me a good family man any time and I'll take it as a compliment.

Roger Marsh: To find out how you can partner with Family Talk go to drjamesdobson.org.